Castle Fanfic: You Smell Like Cherries (or, The Stakeout)
by CharacterDriven
Summary: Beckett is hit by a nasty case of food poisoning during a stakeout (get it, stakeout?) for Vampire Weekend, which is one of my favorite Castle episodes. Pure fluff: the Anti-Angst. Scatological/ gallows humor, so if you think it might be in bad taste, you're probably right. Doesn't get gross, though. Plus character development because I needs it. ABC owns it. I parody it with love


Fluff. Not only fluff, but also in extremely poor taste. Proceed with caution.

This is a companion piece to Castle episode 2.05

"_**Vampire Weekend"**_

The street was dark, with only a few businesses still open. They were waiting for Morlock, but he still hadn't shown. Beckett's stomach growled, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

Castle, absorbed in checking his TweetFeed, said nothing.

_Grrrrrgllglglgle._

Kate rolled her window down. She glanced over at Castle anxiously.

_Grrggle._ Kate shifted again.

The corner of Castle's mouth twitched, ever-so-slightly.

_Zrrrrglllllll._

Castle waited a decent interval, not looking at her. "You hungry?"

"No, no." Her face flamed with embarrassment.

Castle said, "Ooh, look who just twitted me."

Kate took the opportunity to one-up him, feigning indifference. "Well, Castle, one great twit deserves another."

_Grrrrrrrlllllllll. _

Kate sighed, thinking, _"That sounded like Justin Beiber." _Kate turned on the radio, and fiddled with the buttons. Turned the volume up a little. Shifted again, thinking, _"Oh. No. No no nono..." _

_Pffft._

He casually rolled the window down and stuck his head out. "Beautiful day. Fresh autumn breeze on my face." He whispered to nobody in particular, "_And our car is infested with barking spiders._"

Kate boosted the radio volume a little more, then turned the fan on.

Castle said, "Maybe I should, uh, just go get us some..."

"No, no, I'll go," Kate said hastily. "Stay in the car. Watch for our suspect." She jumped out of the car and ran into a local convenience store, ran out a moment later with severe trepidation on her face, continued down the street to a donut shop. She was gone for ten minutes. Castle was torn between amusement and concern. He'd been raised around women, been married twice and raised a child. He'd spent a month with his mother's summer stock tour bus full of actresses with synched ovulation. He knew that where men are happy to have farting contests, many women would rather implode than admitting to anything but the daintiest little cloud of perfumed emission. So he'd pretty much seen it all when it came to plumbing emergencies, but it was a little different with the very cool Katherine Beckett. He knew that if he acknowledged her distress, she'd likely shoot him. So he'd tacitly agreed to hold the fort down, and he did his sacred duty, eyes on the street instead of on his phone.

A skinny, sick-looking hooker of indeterminate age sauntered up to the car. She was underdressed but had plenty of goose-bumps. It was a chilly night. He felt bad for her, outside the warmth of the car. On the other hand, she couldn't smell the residual of Beckett's farts, so a fair trade.

"Hey, pretty boy, lookin' for a date?"

He answered, "Oh, that's ok. I have one. She's just... making a pit stop." The radio squawked, and the hooker made a little face. "Cop."

"I'm not with vice."

"Ok. But if you're not with vice..." she arched an eyebrow. "Something quick?"

He shook his head. "No, no, I'm special to Vector Control. There's some kind of contagious vampire bite thing going around, you heard about it?"

Her eyes went wide. "Yeah, creepy shit, huh?"

He nodded. "You just be careful." He pulled his cheap vampire fangs out of his pocket, popped them in his mouth, and slurred, "You might be neksht."

She backed away, scared. "Holy shit, are you out of your..." and she was gone, her too-high heels clacking on the damp pavement. At least he'd gotten her heart rate up.

He grinned, wiped the spit off, and put them away. "Hmm. Hooker repellant! Cool."

And Beckett was opening the door, climbing back into the car. She looked a little green. "Anything?"

He shook his head. "Just hookers, nothing I couldn't handle."

Beckett rolled her eyes. "I bet."

"Seriously Beckett? You think I'd ever want to sleep with a woman who accepted money for sex?"

"You're serious."

"You've worked in vice. You know what they do to these girls. You know what they do to themselves."

"Well yes, but..."

"So give me a little more credit than that," he snapped. He pulled out his phone again, but she could tell he was writing rapidly, not reading. He was actually ticked off at her? Wow.

He sighed, scowling at his phone. "I'm all thumbs here. Not 'odd pudding'. 'Offputting'."

She noticed he didn't say what she'd expected to hear... that a man like him never had to pay. Because he was conceited and arrogant and... well, why didn't he say that? She waited. Was he actually mad?

"I guess hookers aren't your type," she said quietly, by way of apology.

"You guess correctly." And he was ready, just like that, to forgive her, leering, "Hot lady cops, on the other hand..."

Her stomach rumbled again. "I'm so hot because, apparently, I'm gas-powered."

He glanced over, again torn between amusement and concern. "Tell me you're not getting stomach flu, because if you are, I'm driving and you're going home." He was relieved she was finally bringing the subject up.

Her eyebrows arched ruefully. He was struck at how adorable she got when she blushed.

"No, but... I had a cheese-steak sandwich for lunch and it's disagreeing with me," she sighed.

"Sounds like more of an all-out war."

She wrinkled her adorable little nose. "Sort of smells that way too."

"It's not so bad. Can we expect an alien head to explode out of your belly?"

"It's starting to feel that way."

She shifted her hips again and, well, let's just say that was the toot heard round the world. Kate hid her face, humiliated. The stench made her eyes water, and she'd already been through a round of it in the bathroom. Steak, sauteed with onions, mushrooms, peppers, garlic, cheese, oil and vinegar, consumed by cockroaches gassed with sulphuric acid and left to rot for a week with someone's severed feet at the bottom of a bog. Or maybe the smell of chrysanthemum stems left in the vase too long. At either rate, it was _vile_.

Castle looked out the window and whistled softly to himself. "Lovely evening," he mused. "Light wind from the northwest, right off the Hudson."

"_Wurrrglelurlglrlrlgllwwwllllll," _said Kate's lunch.

Castle inclined his left ear slightly toward her belly. "It sort of sounds like an antique wax-roll recording of Maurice Chevalier, yodeling."

"I'll be right back," Kate choked.

Castle held down the fort again. This time she was gone for twenty minutes. She came back carrying two coffees and a bag of donut holes. Shamefaced, she clambered back into the car, sitting carefully.

"Donut shop threatening to charge you rent next time?" he said sympathetically.

She nodded, not looking at him. "Any sign of our suspect?"

"Nothing passing here but a little gas in the night," he said.

"I hate you more every day." She took a sip of coffee and proffered the bag of donut holes.

"May your feelings for me grow ever stronger." He took a sip of his own coffee/battery acid and winced. "Are you sure you want to drink that? Because coffee..."

Kate's digestive system interrupted with an emphatic "_ZZrrrrrghghllwllwlllllll."_

Kate said, "Ok, no more coffee then." She leaned forward, her head against the steering wheel. "Ow."

Poor Kate. The smell that exuded from her passed through the city, peeled paint off the Brooklyn Bridge, and caused an egregious level of oxidation on the inside of the Statue of Liberty's nostrils. She winced. "Sorry, I know that's really rank." She turned the fan on, and angled the jets away from him.

"What?"

"The smell."

"What smell?"

She glared at him. "Never mind."

"Oh, it's nothing. Really. When Alexis was still in diapers, she got into some refried beans and tortilla chips we'd put out on the coffee table for a party. Lordy-mcgordy, I thought I was gonna die."

Beckett giggled. _Wrglrlglrrrrrgghgghhh._ "Ogod, no, stop, don't make me laugh again." Then she sighed. "We're not making any headway here."

Castle gazed at her silently, thinking, _"Oh, yes we are."_ "You want to call it a day?"

She nodded. "I think I'll go home, put a heating pad on my belly, and drink Kao-Taid till I pass out." She started up the car and pulled out into traffic.

"Sounds like a plan."

Kate radioed Esposito and Ryan to take a shift watching for Morlock. "I'm not feeling too good. I need to go home and sleep it off."

Ryan's voice came over the radio. "Was it the cheesesteak?"

"Oh, no, did it hit Espo too?"

Ryan giggled. "What, you can't hear elephants trumpeting in the distance?"

Espo's voice rasped in the background. "Shut up, bro."

"We heard that," said Castle.

Kate signed off. "I hope this passes through quickly. "

Castle snorted back a chuckle. "Me too. You need to be better in time for the Halloween party."

"I haven't decided whether I'm coming." Her face brightened. "I could bring my little friend along." She patted her abdomen. "I'll be Ingrid Bergman, and this is my date, Gaslight."

"I love that movie!" Castle crowed. "You never cease to amaze me, Detective."

"Sooner or later I will, and you'll be..."

"Gone with the wind?"

She smacked his arm, then winced, and her body produced a sound that would make a trombone hang its head in disgrace.

Turning left on the last block toward his building, she said, "If you tell anyone about this, I _will_ shoot you."

"Not a word, I swear," he suppressed his giggles, but his blue eyes were bright with laughter. "The only horn I like to toot is my own."

"Out of the car."

"Oh, come on, I was just kidding."

"That's your _house_, Castle."

She pulled the car over and he stepped out but leaned in. For a moment, he was dead serious. "Are you sure you'll be ok? These things can be nasty. One time in Baja..."

"I'm fine."

"I can hit the drug store. Get you medicine. A book of matches. Ooh, could we do a science project with a scale model of the Hindenburg?"

She glared at him. "Oh, the humanity," she growled. "Now excuse me while I step on the gas."

Her car peeled out and left him standing on the curb. She got to her apartment just in time. After she'd gotten thoroughly sick, she cleaned up. She got his text a few minutes later: _"If it's any comfort to you, laughed so hard I peed a little."_

"_I have a gas powered rocket launcher. Not afraid to use it." _

"_Armed and dangerous. I like that in a muse."_

_"Just don't run afoul of Espo. Ryan tells me his last blast took out a 3-block radius." _

•••

A few days later, on Halloween, riding down alone in the elevator, Castle got another fit of the giggles. By the time he was at the lobby and walking out of the precinct, he was laughing so hard he couldn't even speak. He walked out past the reception desk, and the night officer watched him, bemused.

Castle tried to stop himself. His eyes were tearing. He said, by way of explanation, "She smells like... _cherries!_"

The night officer tilted his head. "And...?"

"The look on her face!" as if that explained anything, or everything. And he stepped into the October night, leaves swirling around him on the chill wind. He paused a moment, staring up at the dark and swirling sky, and said softly, "The look on her face."


End file.
